Having moved to Smallville, the Kents try to get their new lives in order, which proves easier said than done.

After a strong start last week, I was intrigued to see where this one would go next, especially given that reveal at the very end of the pilot. The words ‘Captain Luthor’ offered up an awful lot of questions, but rather than fully answer any of them, this instalment actually deepens the mystery somewhat.

But I get ahead of myself – much like the pilot, the majority of the drama here comes from far more down-to-earth issues. Like, having moved your teenaged sons to a whole new area, just as they were both about to start school, now they have to start over. For Jonathan that means trying to fit into the new school’s football team, which is full of people who don’t like him very much after what happened at the party. This is exacerbated when Clark and Lois don’t let Jordan go to school because they need to help him figure out how to get his powers under control first, so he doesn’t accidentally eyeball laser any of his fellow pupils. With no sign of the guy who kissed his girlfriend, Sarah’s boyfriend and all his friends are happy to take their frustrations out on his brother instead.

That leaves Clark to take Jordan to the Fortress of Solitude to let him find out more about his heritage and hopefully get his abilities assessed by the AI of his father. There’s a pleasing push and pull to the relationship between Clark and Jordan – it never devolves into cliché but actually feels like a genuine relationship between a teenager and his father. There’s love there, but also all the sharp edges and misunderstandings that can spill over, and both Tyler Hoechlin and Alex Garfin deserve a lot of credit for the way they portray it.

Meanwhile, Lois is still suspicious of Morgan Edge’s plans for Smallville, and that reporters nose of hers just keeps her digging into his past exploits to find out more. When a town hall meeting with the man is announced, she can’t help herself but dive in, and being Lois Lane she goes all in, which is risky considering that the man is literally her boss as well. This storyline is predictable enough, but no less entertaining to watch for all that. Elizabeth Tulloch is really enjoying being that special combination of shrewd cynic reporter with a pure moral code, and her energy positively leaps off the screen so you can’t help but cheer her on, even when she’s obviously heading for trouble.

I’ve seen concerns raised elsewhere by my colleague Alasdair in his Full Lid newsletter with regards to the ratio of white cast members to non-white and how most of the people of colour in the cast were either villains or apparently coded as such in the pilot. This was a fair observation in hindsight and whereas I won’t say this instalment fixes it, it certainly muddies the waters a little bit on at least one character, moving them from ‘definite bad guy’ to ‘big question mark’.

Like the opener though, mostly what I like is the combination of heartfelt earnestness mixed with genuinely three-dimensional, real-feeling characters in a lived-in world. Nobody here really feels like an out and out bad guy, and even the good guys feel occasionally morally grey. There’s much promise here.

Verdict: Solid second episode that succeeds by knowing how to get the best from both the cast and the characters they’re playing. 9/10

Greg D. Smith